Players 'playing' promotion as never before

Players, the official Bollywood remake of the Hollywood crime thriller 'The Italian Job' is all set to hit the theatres on Friday. Abhishek Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Bipasha Basu, Bobby Deol, Sikandar Kher and Ommi Vaidya starrer and produced by Viacom 18 & Burmawala Brothers along with Abbas-Mustan, aims to take the nation by storm.

This Abbas-Mustan thriller team went out on a limb and took out time from their busy schedules to promote the film on a Pan-India level. The Players team kick started their tour here in Mumbai with a never-seen-before music launch via an action-packed event with the stars performing stunts in front of audience. Followed by Abhishek Bachchan’s trip to Nagpur and Jaipur where he was joined by Abbas-Mustan. Talking about their fast-paced action thriller says Abbas-Mustan, "People love the commotion in such films. The way the actors escape through tunnels and drainage pipes makes the film interesting. The double crossing and the scheming and plotting are something which keeps them glued to the screen. This is what we have retained in our film as well". While in Jaipur, Abhishek didn’t forget to make a pit-stop at Ajmer Sharif, while Sonam Kapoor and Bobby Deol set temperatures soaring in Chandigarh as they spoke about their characters in the film.

The next day was nothing short of hectic as the Players split to travel to different cities. While Junior B and Neil Nitin Mukesh travelled to Lucknow, Sonam visited Pune and Bipasha took off to Kolkata. Hot Bips said, "Players reflects the present age, the change in look and feel is apparent and important. I am here in one of my favourite city now and happy to soak in the Christmas-New Year celebrations in Kolkata". Sonam Kapoor was cynosure of all eyes at Cinemax, Inorbit Mall, Pune as she waved cheerfully to the crowds. Medical students were sure in for a treat as they were visited by Abhishek Bachchan. "It was a wonderful experience working on Players. Abaas-Mustan wrote a brilliant script and have made a lovely movie. Players is a 'masaledaar' entertainer", chucks Junior B. Neil Nitin Mukesh who spoke to them at length and then dropped into radio stations.

The film’s exclusive party at Sheraton had Bangalore buzzing up as the Players partied into the wee hours of morning. The team then took off to Ahmedabad where they visited the Reliance Digital Store to pay tribute to business icon Dhirubhai Ambani on his birthday. The next city on the cards was Delhi, the capital city was abuzz with the PLAYERS bowling game at PVR Ambience Mall's Blu-O bowling alley, where the whole team went head-to-head to win an exclusive all-gold pin. No guesses here, Abhishek Bachchan who made an impressive 78 score, walked away with the coveted trophy as team mate Bipasha Basu cheered on.

The Delhi Metros was the place to be as audiences caught Players in action, as they unlocked a vault on metros in the Capital. As part of the film’s promotion, the Players orchestrated a train heist much to their onlookers delight, in sync with the theme of the film. Post which they boarded the train followed by a friendly media interaction and thrilled their fans with some merchandise from the film.

Confirms Vikram Malhotra of Viacom18 Motion Pictures, "Players has one of the most thrilling and elaborate train heist sequences ever seen in a Hindi film and we wanted to highlight this for the audience ahead of the film’s release. The stunts, the pace, the action of this sequence will blow away peoples' mind when they see it in Players on the silver screen."

As per official Foresight Analytics' reports, Players moved up from 29 to 32 on FTI. Interestingly, the improvement in FTI numbers of the film comes from Spontaneous Awareness (SA). The jump in SA is about 10.0 per cent in just one week. With an increase in SA and FTI, Players already expect to open brilliantly with numbers coming from men and women in the 25+ age group.

The team is pulling out all stops to promote the film and recently visited Indore too where Abhishek Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor visited the budding chartered accountants in the city to boost their morale. As the action-packed movie is receiving an unprecedented response already across the country, Friday will decide its fate on box-office!